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On the 13th December 2015 I asked my friend Martin to read what is on this website. He was predictably sceptical. We had arranged to travel to Norwich for the day on the 22nd so I decided to stop taking the vitamin so that he could witness my dementia.
I intended the 25µg (1000 IU) dose at 18:30 on the 20th to be my last. From previous experience I expected that I would begin to experience dementia symptoms about twenty-four hours later but by 22:30 on the 21st I still felt normal. I was worried about the dementia returning during the night and possibly being as severe as if it might have been if I had not been treating myself for five years so, to see me through the night, I took 12·5µg (500 IU) before going to bed at 10:30.
The following morning I still seemed okay. At about 9:30 I went to make a pot of tea. I picked up the kettle and took off the lid. A while later I found myself staring intently at the element at the bottom of the kettle thinking “What am I supposed to be doing?” I smiled. I was feeling hungry but since we were going to a restaurant at midday I did not want to have breakfast. I decided to snack on a cup of dry muesli. I keep a small cup out on the worktop but it was not there. I hunted around for it and eventually found it beside the muesli container in the pantry. I had already gone to the pantry earlier, forgotten what I was in there for and left leaving the cup behind. Later, I could only find one glove in their usual pockets in my coat. I had earlier removed a carrier bag from another pocket and put the glove that one.
Martin arrived and we eventually set off with the intention of stopping at the Postwick Park & Ride.
Just before the roundabout at the Brundall turn off, my attention was drawn by a McDonald's ‘M’ and I turned my head to look at the restaurant as we went past. I do not remember much about the next 3km. Martin was not familiar with the new road layout on the approach to Norwich. I remember noticing as we drove past the A1042 turn off and thinking “We should be going down there.” As we drove under the A1042 flyover and the myriad of lights went by overhead, it was like a scene from a film where a sedated patient is being wheeled into the operating theatre. Then I heard Martin say “I don't remember this bridge.” I looked out of the window and a sign with ‘River Yare’ filled my vision. I came back to full consciousness and was finally able to tell Martin that he had missed the turn off. It is possible to hypnotize someone by suddenly distracting them to subvert their conscious mind. I wonder if something similar happened as I turned my head to face forwards.
The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully. The only significant sign that anything was wrong was the number of times that I found myself stopping in the middle of a sentence either stuck for a word or having lost track of what I was saying. At the end of the day we went to the bus station to catch a bus back to the park-and-ride. As I entered the station I was hit by a roar of sound and a wall of bright lights that confused me for a while. After a few seconds I realised that the noise was the roar of a diesel engine and the bright lights were headlights and their multiple reflections in the lanes of perspex bus stands. I moved from stand to stand as though slightly inebriated, trying to find the one from which our bus would leave. I eventually had the presence of mind to head to the booking office to find a departure board.
During the drive home, in a discussion about restaurants I could not remember the name of TGI Friday's. I would keep pausing to think of the name and then say “TFI Friday's” even though this is a vulgar, joke name that I was aware was incorrect. The idea of asking Martin the correct name entered my head a couple of times then drifted out again.
I was still wary of a rapid deterioration during the night so I took a 12·5µg (500 IU) tablet before going to bed. I woke up in much the same state as the previous day. I intended to spend another day untreated but by midday I had got tired of the constant feeling of uncertainty and of looking for things that were not where they should be. I took a 25µg (1000 IU) tablet expecting it to take effect within half an hour. Forty-five minutes later my mental state had not improved so I took a 12·5µg (500 IU) tablet and was soon back to normal.
© Copyright 2020 Andrew Jarvis.